


Under

by aperture_living



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: BDSM, Explicit Language, M/M, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 11:00:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aperture_living/pseuds/aperture_living
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when they shuffled out after, properly shamed and apologetic, their heads down and their bodies shaking as they struggled against the innate urge to go burnt, Dedan was none the better, Dedan was still fucking craving, Dedan was still <i>wanting</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under

The Elsens weren’t smart enough to copy _his_ speech, so after the mask was on them, Dedan growled orders that they kindly _shut the fuck up_. Sometimes if their breathing (those sighs, those damn fucking sighs, _hhhhh_ , the goddamn shits) started to become a distraction, he’d get a gag and show them the proper way to follow orders, even if it interrupted the mood for a few minutes. Did it really matter in the end? The replicated toad mask was enough to hide the extra mouthpiece, keep it out of his view, and that in itself made it easier to pretend, to try to forget. 

At least until the lack of words grated on his mind, reminded him how fake this was, how fucking pathetic. Zacharie would never be this quiet, would never not have something to say, and the realization of what a fucking farce this was only set the rage in him up to another impossible level. And sure, there were bodies before him to take it out on, Elsens who did as they were told (if they knew what was good for them), who obeyed on hands and knees with apologies, but it wasn’t the same. Once you knew what lurked under the mask, it could never be the truth; it spoiled the moments, ruined the imagery, rotted out the underlying joy, took away the one mystery that life had granted the world. The grunting behind the gags was always too breathy, their necks too small and unblemished, their bodies too slight, too damn fragile and breakable, weak. 

Weakness was what he loathed to start with. And Zacharie was anything but weak.

But still, the Elsens nuzzled his shoes after he kicked them, their bodies trembled in their well-learned position, they were trained and perfected to what anyone would have wanted. And as with most perfection, they were disgustingly boring, a waste of his time, ultimately resented, ultimately offensive. Even when they shuffled out after, properly shamed and apologetic, their heads down and their bodies shaking as they struggled against the innate urge to go burnt, Dedan was none the better, Dedan was still fucking craving, Dedan was still _wanting_.

It would never be right, not really. Not until he got to take a piece out of that fucking smarmy merchant himself, the real thing, no imposters. Not until he got to show him who was boss of this zone, goddammit, and where he could stick those wares, that backpack full of bullshit. It was attitude, it was ( _power_ ) annoying, it was a mockery of order every time he spoke with that unhelpful information.

So when he returned to the office one day after touring the mines and their infestation only to find Zacharie standing beside his desk, picking up a random paperweight (shaped like a cow, what a sense of humor Enoch had), Dedan was mildly surprised, mildly pissed, and mildly intrigued.

“What do you fucking want?” came the low growl, spat out as he crossed the room to snatch the leaded glass from the merchant’s hands. “Don’t you have some idiots to be peddling shit to?”

A low laugh bubbled from out behind the mask (his mask, _his real mask_ with the scent of death clinging relentlessly to it, so different than the fake ones the Elsens were crammed into), and Zacharie turned to him, watching from subtle confines. “Maybe, but they can wait while I peddle it to you, first.”

Dedan fell into his seat, that power place, that central hub of the entire zone, and rested his elbows on the desk. His mind curiously wondered how and why Zacharie’s neck looked like that, before he shifted it back on track.“I don’t want any of your shit,” he snarled. “You have ten seconds to get your ass out of he--”

“You want what I have,” the merchant interrupted, nonchalantly. “Because I have something more valuable that tickets, than meat, than weapons, than credits.”

“Five seconds, you little shit.”

“Information.” And just like that, Dedan’s attention was caught, trapped; he leaned back in his seat, letting the enigmatic merchant continue on. He wasn’t a fool; information could be priceless.

Zacharie was smiling behind the mask; the guardian could hear it in the words he spoke, the tone.“The end is coming. I’m sure you noticed the change in the air, in the atmosphere, in the very things that suddenly lurk here. _He’s_ the reason. Our time is limited, the days slipping away like so much sand.”

Silence. Rare and frightening coming from this particular office.

_The end..._

Then Dedan ground his his teeth, the sound loud and hideous with no lips to muffle the sound. This was fucking bullshit, a fucking travesty, and he hated thinking in these patterns, in these facts. Time was limited. The work was pointless. Everything would be lost, all of them erased, and--

He didn’t think, just snatched the paperweight up and launched it at a random wall, listening as it splintered into a hundred-thousand pieces. Enoch would be heartbroken; Dedan would have to say an Elsen did, but that was the least of his fucking concerns, and through it all, Zacharie stood, his face hidden, everything hidden. The smug fucker. The goddamn merchant.

An errant thought passed through his head ( _It’s so fucking different, the Elsens versus the fucking real one, because the not knowing what’s underneath is what gets you fucking hard_ ) but he pushed it away, shoved it back. Was now the time? Sure as shit didn’t seem like it.

_But I won’t get another chance, will I? Not if that asshole makes it here._

“I can see that you need time to process this,” Zacharie said, pushing off the desk and meandering towards the door. “And I have a few more people to inform. I think I can see myself out.”

But the mood was broken, everything sour and gone to ashes in his mouth; the news had killed the hopes that his twisted little fantasies would come to life in a few simple words. Hands tore at the arms of his chair while the door shut with an ominous click, and he was left alone with broken glass, broken dreams, and now a broken seat. His chance was gone.

Fuck all if he was letting some assfuck with a stupid idea come and wreck his zone. Now, now it was goddamn personal. 

And he’d make sure as shit the little cunt knew it. 

 

****

 

Later, when the Batter lay at Dedan’s feet in a mess of broken bones, broken skin, in blood and violence, the guardian loomed over him, covered him in his shadow as if it were a heavy woolen blanket. His hand snapped out, tossing something on the ground before the purifier’s face, and it clattered with a cheap, artificially plastic sound. The Batter would have blinked if one of his eyes wasn’t completely blackened, swollen from when one of those large fists had caught him in the cheek.

A weird little toad’s face (no, mask, it was a _mask_ ), stared up at the Batter, mixing in the blood that was spilt and pooled. It mocked him in its strange silence, and smelled like sex and sweat.

Dedan ground out six words while his hands went for the zipper on his pants:

“Put it the fuck on, asshole.”


End file.
